17 November 2017, Dhaka, Bangladesh:
Reproduction involves both women and men, yet men’s understanding and cooperation is essential in improving the state of families and communities, and for also reaching a stable world population. The most recent projection on population growth is 9.6 billion people by 2050.
In many parts of the world, gender equality is still in the very beginning phases. Using men as allies in the struggle for gender equality only advances progress and increases the likelihood of success for women’s rights and empowerment. Perhaps surprisingly, men often get overlooked in discussions on family planning, population growth, and empowerment while more than a third of all pregnancies are either unwanted or unintended worldwide. Public health officials and implementers have advocated the involvement of men as a strategy for addressing the dismal performance of family planning (FP) programmes.
Following a modest beginning in 2013, now in its fifth year, World Vasectomy Day 2017 will take place on November 17. It is an ongoing movement that harnesses the best in men to build fairer, more respectful and kinder gender relations. World Vasectomy Day provides a unique opportunity for men to shoulder the burden of contraception for themselves, their families and our future. World Vasectomy Day is a worldwide ongoing movement about engaging the men in conversations about family planning, helping men and their families become more informed about their choices.
A vasectomy is a safer, cheaper procedure that causes fewer complications than tubal ligation in women. Vasectomy has been found to be a highly cost-effective contraceptive method. It is also very a successful procedure – as a method of birth control, vasectomies are 99.85% effective. About 2.4% of men around the world use this method (Shattuck, et al. 2016)
Vasectomy is one of the most effective contraceptive methods with no side effects but is little used around the world. The use of vasectomy is also limited across PPD member countries, most of the countries are not using vasectomy as the means of family planning.
Expected participation in World Vasectomy day 2017
- Urologists, physicians and vasectomists (or physician-vasectomists of a number of specialties) – all providing skilled health care.
- Men who have received vasectomies.
- Women who benefit from their partners’ generosity and are willing to publically share their gratitude.
- Family planning advocates and groups who provide expertise and knowledge in service delivery, demand building, managing of big data and measurement and evaluation of programs and projects.
- Men’s groups, women’s organizations and environmental
- Ministries of health and ministries of family planning to make the expansion feasible
Reference:
Shattuck, et al. (2016). A Review of 10 Years of Vasectomy Programming and Research in Low-Resource Settings. Glob Health Sci Pract. 4(4), pp. 647–660.
UN, (2017). World population projected to reach 9.6 billion by 2050 – UN report. [online] Available at http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=45165#.Wg024VuCzIU. [Accessed 16 November 2017]
World Vasectomy Day, [online] Available at http://www.worldvasectomyday.org/